Amy Tan Quotes

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.
Amy Tan

Yourself, Someone, Writing

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.
Amy Tan

Kindness, Universe, Knows

I have a writer's memory which makes everything worse than maybe it actually was.
Amy Tan

Makes, Actually, Memory

God, life changes faster than you think.
Amy Tan

Life, God, Changes

I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.
Amy Tan

Freedom, Mind, Enough

It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.
Amy Tan

Life, Writer, Luxury

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.
Amy Tan

Pain, Down, Same

I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese.
Amy Tan

Mother, Understand, Her

It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.
Amy Tan

Success, Both, Conformity

The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.
Amy Tan

Life, Great, Reading

I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes.
Amy Tan

Mother, Different, Eyes

No one in my family was a reader of literary fiction. So, I didn't have encouragement, but I didn't have discouragement, because I don't think anybody knew what that meant.
Amy Tan

Family, Knew, Anybody

Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.
Amy Tan

Amazing, Power, Feelings

I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private.
Amy Tan

Good, Art, Writing

I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.
Amy Tan

Find, Grateful, Ideas

You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.' Or 'I'll write like this because it will impress that critic.'
Amy Tan

Good, Write, Idea

I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.
Amy Tan

Fear, Failure, Expected

I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.
Amy Tan

Mother, Person, Learned

I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.
Amy Tan

Family, Book, Read

I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.
Amy Tan

Away, Times, Started

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.
Amy Tan

Thought, Enough, Write

I would still like to have that luxury, to be able to just sit and draw for hours and hours and hours. In a way, that's what I do as a writer.
Amy Tan

Able, Writer, Sit

In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
Amy Tan

America, Else, Keep

My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight she and I fought almost every day.
Amy Tan

Age, Mother, Remember

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.
Amy Tan

Time, Parents, High

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: February 19, 1952

Links

Find on Amazon: Amy Tan

Cite this Page: Citation

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